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By the 1690s, about 15,000 Africans had reached the thirteen colonies, but in the first decade of the eighteenth century, another 13,000 people arrived, and the number increased another 13,000 in the second decade, almost tripling in the 1720s, when close to 37,000 people landed. This dramatic growth continued into the 1730s, with the arrival of 62,000 Africans. Thereafter, their numbers dropped off, averaging about 35,000 people per decade until the American Revolution, before a final surge in arrivals in the last years of the legal trade.

Between 1801 and 1808, 73,000 Africans arrived in the United States, or about 19 percent of the total number of people sent to this country. During the entire slave trade period, two-thirds of the captives traveled on British ships sailing mainly from Liverpool, Bristol, and London, while 28.5 percent were transported on American ships, especially after the Revolution.